Fed Up eBay Sellers Call for 3-Day Strike

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Changes to return policy, seller standards spur Occupy-style protest. A small group of fed up eBay sellers is calling for a three-day sellers’ strike, starting April 26, that they hope will get eBay to back down from some of its recent policy announcements.

In its Spring 2012 Seller Update, eBay said that, starting May 1, it will require Top-rated Sellers to upload tracking information on 90 percent of U.S. transactions. Starting June 1, return policies of 14 days or longer and one-day handling will also be required to retain Top-rated Seller status and receive the 20-percent discount on final value fees.

Sellers sound off against return center, longer return times; say policy favors large retailers.eBay's policy changes related to returns and its new, optional return center that will be available in May are causing an uproar among sellers, as a recent The Online Seller article proved.

In response to the article, "eBay Return Center: Becoming an Amazon?," sellers' heated objections to eBay's new returns policy overflowed the comments section.

eBay’s policy changes related to returns and its new, optional return center that will be available in May are causing an uproar among sellers, as a recent The Online Seller article proved.

The small online retailers/sellers as a collective are the backbone that control the vast majority of online business. We as online sellers are a intregral component to the increased revenue of the large ecommerce firms such as Ebay, Amazon, Etsy, Bonanza, Ecrater, and Addoway.

The names Amazon and eBay may be synonymous with e-commerce, but it’s still the small merchants and solo shops that make up the vast majority of online businesses.

According to a new report by IBISWorld, small companies represent more than 75 percent of the e-commerce market. Most of these have fewer than five employees, while 45 percent of online sellers operate their businesses single-handedly.

When House Bill 3659, otherwise known as the "Amazon Tax," was first passed in January of last year, state Sen. John Cullerton (D-6th), who co-sponsored the bill with state Rep. Pat Verschoore (D-Milan), boldly stated that "Illinois would generate an additional $150 million in much-needed revenues" under the new law. Skeptical of that huge amount of money (which would have been a more than 50% increase in use tax collected), we looked at the numbers and determined it was way off.

What form of mobile payments to you prefer to use for your online shopping?

PayPal on Thursday introduced PayPal Here, a mobile payment solution that attaches to your smartphone. If the idea sounds familiar, that’s because Square, a similar technology, has been around for about two years.

But those two aren’t the only options for small businesses looking to process credit card payments on the go. In fact, there are now four such payment solutions if you include VeriFone’s Payware Mobile and Intuit’s GoPayment.

Which one is best for you? We took a look at the various features for each offering to help you make the decision

Cost

Square: Charges a fee of 2.75% on every transaction (except for online-only transactions; Square takes a... Read More